Well, here we are again, as October begins to wind down on Cedarville’s campus. For me, it’s the last time.
“Last time!” is something I think a lot lately. Last fall break of college! Last Missions chapel week! Last show for my last play! Lots of lasts. I’m afraid I’m pretty much consumed by fear of the future. (Note: Please please please don’t leave a comment about how God is really in control of everything, so I shouldn’t worry about it. I’ve heard that spiel about ten times too many, alright?) It’s just that life right now is REALLY good. Like, to a ridiculous extent. I’m at a place I love, surrounded by people who make me constantly happy, and completely without real problems. And the trouble is that I am well aware of the storms just over the horizon that will come no matter what. By the beginning of November, I really need to be ready for my recital. Pretty much completely. The second I graduate, I’m going to be under mountains of debt. After this year, I won’t have a roommate who I can talk easily to and whose opinion I hold in the highest of regards. Once we have those diplomas in our hands, all of my 2010 friends in the music department will be traveling across the country and to far-off lands, and who knows if I’ll see them again?
So despite the fact that I should be basking in the glow of a wonderful semester, I can’t help but think about how horribly uncertain my future is. Honestly, it’s the roommate thing that bothers me the most, oddly enough. I’ve gotten used to coming back to a room where I can talk to someone who won’t judge me, who has a keen mind that I can bounce my thoughts off of, and who is considerate of my feelings and the things I need. My family has repeated many times how rare it is to be with the same person all four years of college and actually enjoy it. All my immediate family had at least 3 different people in the dorm room at one time or another, and at least one bad experience with those people. And after I’ve had smooth sailing for so long, I’m afraid to go out on a choppy sea where I’m guaranteed to find myself stuck with someone who embarrasses themselves at parties or doesn’t understand big words or who decides to bring back their newest girlfriend for late night canoodling.
What I WANT is for time to stop here. Right here. OK, maybe it’s a little cold, so two weeks back. There. Perfect. Now I never have to pay back my school loans. Now I never have to graduate and go get a real job. I don’t have to perform a senior recital, and my roommate is forever cool.
Ah, if only. Despite my best efforts, time refuses to slow its pace, and my constant worrying only serves to make it speed up. If there’s some way to make me just focus on the here and now, so that I can enjoy what I have and not fret about what will come regardless, I really need to find it.
OK, moving on. My student teaching next semester is officially chosen, and I am most definitely going back to Dayton Christian to work with Ms. Miller. Needless to say, I am thrilled. For starters, RJ. That should be more than enough, really. Also, they’re putting on THE MUSIC MAN in the spring. Yes, I’m going back and helping out with the first musical I was ever a part of. AND AND AND they’re going to be performing it in the Victoria Theatre in downtown Dayton, which is beyond amazing. And finally, holy crap, I’m GOING TO BE STUDENT TEACHING AT DC. This is what I’ve wanted since before I graduated from the place. And now that I’ve gotten all this music learning under my belt, I can really appreciate what a terrific teacher Ms. Miller is and how much I’m going to learn under her (Note: if she’s reading this, hey! Brown nose bonus points!). Some might say I want to student teach with her because she would go easy on me, since we’re tight already. I know, though, that she’s going to make me bust my backside for a passing grade, which is what I want. I want to graduate with a degree AND the ability to use it competently. After all, when I’m in the classroom I won’t have someone to fall back on when I don’t know what to do. It’s my responsibility, and I’d darn well better know what I’m doing.
So, Glee. I know, from a logical point of view, that I shouldn’t like this show. I like shows that are consistently funny without having to resort to immaturity or awkwardness to force a laugh. On the other end of the spectrum, I like serious plots and very deep characters that can be analyzed after watching. Glee fits neither of these categories. I frequently find myself wincing or fast-forwarding through the Hulu broadcast instead of sitting through a character making a fool of himself. With very few exceptions, none of the characters on the show seem very deep, though that’s hardly surprising considering 90% of the characters are high schoolers. Really, it’s all about the music. Big surprise there. I love choral arrangements of popular songs, and that’s pretty much all the show does. Of course, exceptions like “Bust Your Windows” and “Maybe This Time” are incredibly fun too. So if I skip large portions of the show to watch the kids perform, is that so bad? The only thing that bothers me, purely from a musical standpoint, is how completely unreal their singing sounds. I mean, I understand that it’s the nature of television to be fairly unrealistic, but listen to the final song from the pilot, “Don’t Stop Believing”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUZwdbeS2mM
Hear those voices in the first 17 seconds? In the episode, three people made that sound. Three! Ha! I could maybe see seven or eight people making that sort of noise, though ten to twelve would be stronger. Even then, that sort of vocal purity doesn’t come about until, at the very very least, a month or so of practice. And it just goes downhill from there. The two main powerhouse singers don’t use mikes, yet somehow out-sing the three who do, though they’re only used for a few seconds. When they stop using the mikes, the sound output and blend remains exactly the same. At one point, Finn literally sits down at the drums and starts playing while he sings. He then gets up and hands the sticks back to the drummer. At no point do you hear the drums stop playing, even when there is clearly no one there. Well, have I ruined your viewing experience yet? Yes, I know that I’m nitpicking. Everything in the sequence was lip-synched to a studio recording, and the people at FOX wanted to make a video that was visually appealing to draw in viewers in the fall. But this is the same sort of thing that makes people think teaching music is easy. After days of rehearsal, five people can make that incredible sound! It’s like the kids just teach themselves. Remember that sequence in “The Sound of Music”, where Maria was teaching the children about “Do-Re-Mi” and how to build a song? The kids had supposedly no musical training ever since their mother died. By the end of the song, however, they were singing in four part harmony WHILE DANCING. Holy crap, if only it were that easy. Do these quibbles prevent me from enjoying the show? Not really. Heck, I’m listening to “Rehab” right now.
In my latest bout of introspection, I’ve been looking at why I’m friends with the people I am. I’ve also been figuring out why some people get on my last nerve in two seconds flat, and both categories usually hinge on one qualification: self-awareness. See, I take the time to figure myself out. I want to know why I do the things I do, and how I can improve myself. So a common thread that binds many of the people I could call “best friends” together is that they are similarly self-cognizant. It’s not a universal rule, mind you, but the people that I feel the most comfortable around and those I share the most with are people who understand themselves well. It’s refreshing to talk to someone about my motivations and have them reply with their own subconscious insights.
On the other side of the coin, the people from whom I will always run away are completely oblivious to both themselves and others around them. These kinds of people butt in on conversations, add in unnecessary detail to unsolicited stories, go completely wild in public places, and overreact to any situation. These are the people who stare at complete strangers in the cafeteria with a vague and empty smile plastered on their face. They will interrupt a class lecture with a 5 minute story that only peripherally relates to what the professor was discussing. They will turn prayer request time into an opportunity to divulge every negative experience they have undergone since the age of 10. And the sad thing? I know of 3 people who have individually done every single thing I just mentioned within the past year. Usually in a class that I was required to take. It took large amounts of self-control to not reach across the aisle and strangle these people. I just wanted to shake them and shout, “Don’t you see the reaction you’re getting? No one wants to hear about this! People don’t like you because you’re doing this!” Frankly, I’m a teensy bit worried about how I’m going to react to students like this when I’m a teacher. One of the main reasons I did nothing about these people I know is because I had no authority over them. When I do hold sway over their grades, I’m going to be mightily tempted to say something rude and sarcastic that would make them cry. It helps if I keep in mind that the only thing worse than an annoying kid is an annoying kid that’s sobbing hysterically in the middle of class. Remember that “overreact in any situation” thing?
Anyway. I think the main reason self-awareness is such a big deal to me is because I used to be one of the really annoying ones. Anyone who knew me before 7th grade can testify to that. I would say whatever popped into my head, and then make a big show of looking around to see if anyone laughed. If even one person cracked a smile, I had succeeded. The other 15 people who glared at me were inconsequential. But I still remember my first day in Jr. High Sunday school. For the first time, I was in a class of all guys. I REALLY wanted to look good, even if I didn’t know how. And then I saw a chance to make what I saw as a hysterically funny joke. I threw out the line, took a breath, and waited for the laughter. I was met with a class full of perplexed and hostile stares. So I shut up. For the rest of my junior high career, I did much more observing and much less talking. Around my good friends, I was a little more relaxed, but to everyone else I just sat back and listened to how other people interacted. It wasn’t till I started 9th grade that I started to come back out of my shell, but I was much more conscious of how my words and actions affected others. Frankly, I think every kid should do something like that at some point. I don’t mean everyone should withdraw completely. But it wouldn’t hurt to sit back, look around, and figure out how to interact by following the example of others. It took me 14 years to start working it out, but I’ve never been the fastest of learners.
So I prize those people who can tell me why they do the things they do. I love it when I have an observant pal with whom I can commiserate about social awkwardness. And I want to grab a sledgehammer when someone completely disregards my nonverbal cues and tells me about their struggles with body odor. ::shudder::
Wow, this has been more than enough of an entry for me. 2130 words! I’d be impressed with myself if I hadn’t spread the writing out over about 4 days!
So I bid you adieu, discriminating readers, and don’t stop believing!
SO. It’s September. Holy crap. Today’s my birthday, actually. I’ll be 22 at 2:22 pm. Crazy! I don’t have any more “big” birthdays coming up till 2017, which is really a weird feeling. 16, 18, 20, and 21 were all big deals, and all the rest of the birthdays in the 20-range are just sort of “meh”. Yep, there’s another year. Whoop-dee-doo.
Well, school is going well. I’ve got a fairly light schedule, with only chorale at 3 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I’ve got three classes and Glee Club on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but they’re spaced enough that they don’t overwhelm me. Two of those classes are for literature, and I have the same teacher for both of them. She is without question the best literature teacher I’ve had in college, and I love every minute of it. I average about 2 full pages of notes each class period, and she KNOWS her stuff. She also manages to be very challenging while being aware of the limits of her students, which is something I want to emulate. The material we’re covering is pretty interesting, and the majority of my classmates are willing to participate in discussion, which has always been a complaint of mine in any class.
So that’s all good. On to the not good.
I got sick a couple of weeks ago. Towards the end of August, my throat starting causing me enormous amounts of pain, but I only took notice after I started getting chills and aches, and I realized that I shouldn’t be feeling like this. I took about a day and a half off, felt a good deal better, and went back to class. My throat continued to hurt a bit, but I figured it was just taking its time healing from the damage it took. A week later, I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like a flaming golf ball was lodged in my esophagus. Oh dear. Anyway, long story short: I had what was likely the flu (swine flu? I dunno, but I survived it in any case), bronchitis, and pharyngitis. At the time of this writing, I’ve still got a fairly distracting cough and some throat pain. This is, unsurprisingly, not a good thing when your senior recital is taking place within a month. This is so much a not good thing that we’re actually postponing my recital. While it was originally planned for October 12th, it’s now been moved back to January 10, 2010. That may seem like a huge delay, but we didn’t want to just push it back one month because Hannah, my good friend and accompanist, has her senior recital towards the end of November, and we didn’t want to smash two recitals on top of her at once. To be perfectly honest, though, I’m really ok with my recital being pushed back. My recital check, where I have to have all my songs memorized and ready to perform, would have been next Tuesday, and I was VERY not ready for that.
You know what I love? My dorm. I spend way too much time in my unit this year. There are many reasons for this. 1. My room is awesome. Yes, I’m back in Lawlor this year, because Grant’s an RA and I wanted to stick with him for another year. So the room is tiny, but we’ve done well with what we have, and the beds are unbunked. Honestly, it’s not too crowded either, cause we’ve got our own sections of the room that we can claim as our own, and there’s even space for a fridge and a microwave. 2. Grant is awesome. Hopefully he doesn’t mind that I brag on him, but rooming with Grant is one of the least stressful things on the planet. Why, at this moment he’s attaching a bunch of homemade birthday decorations to our door, because he’s just that kind of guy. After 3 years, we can read each other’s moods fairly well and are pretty comfortable with each other. He’s also done really well with being an RA, which brings me to… 3. The guys in my unit are awesome. We don’t really have anyone who I can’t get along with, namely those overly macho men who drench themselves with AXE and look down on anyone who can’t make a basket from half court. Everyone is fairly down to earth with a good sense of humor, and I love it. Nearly everyone in the unit is either a freshman or a transfer, so it’s quite an experience being at the top of the pile. In fact, one of the freshmen is a music education major, so now I’m his MENC mentor. Convenient! 4. I got a new computer. I know I mentioned this about 3 months ago, but it’s 21 ½ inches wide! With a webcam! And a really good processor! So it’s more than easy to spend a few hours sitting in front of it, playing games and surfing the web. All of these things add up to me only leaving my dorm when I have to. I should get out more. Hannah certainly advocates me spending more time in the music department, and it’s true that I’m hardly ever in the office anymore.
Lately, I’ve been rather stuck on the transitory nature of life. An odd way to phrase that, perhaps. What I mean is how everything in life is incredibly temporary. My first three years of college, in retrospect, have seemed to fly by. Logically, I know they haven’t. I know they’ve passed at a normal rate, and at certain points, time as slowed to a crawl. But from my current perspective, everything’s blurred together. And looking back on these few years, it’s really clear that my enjoyment of college has increased exponentially with each year. I’ve gotten more and more comfortable with myself and my place on campus, and my standing with my peers has steadily increased as well. Looking back further, I realize it was the same way in high school. I had friends all four years, but I didn’t come into my own till junior year, and my senior year was by far the best of the lot. It has a lot to do with how in control I feel of my surroundings, and that feeling really can’t flourish till you’re sitting at the top of the pile. What I’ve always wanted is to be remembered. That’s really one of my main ambitions, shallow as it is. I’ve always wanted to have people mention my name years after they’ve seen me. Yeah, I’m self-centered. I can deal with it. But the simple fact of life is that that doesn’t happen much. When someone else becomes “media specialist” for MENC, no one’s going to tell them, “yeah, that’s a pretty good poster, but Evan’s were way better”. The vocal faculty isn’t going to hold me up as the ideal to strive for when it comes to preparing for juries (with good reason).
And you know what? That’s a REALLY good thing. I’ve spent time imagining if I were viewed as the pinnacle of achievement, but in actuality, that would really suck for everyone else. It’s really good to be seen as an accomplished person in your own right, rather than constantly trying to struggle out of someone else’s shadow. After all, I’d hate to always be compared to JP when I’m doing my job, or always try to measure up to Conrad Bear when giving a performance. And to be perfectly honest, that’s one of the biggest things I love about being in college. I’m seen as someone who has accomplished things on my own. Heaven knows that I do indeed love my father very much, but the fact remains that he is also a music teacher who is very well known for his phenomenal voice. It is therefore inevitable that I am compared to him, and as of yet there’s no way for me to measure up. He’s got a 32 year head start, after all.
So as time flies by, each of us gets our own day in the sun. As Tom Lehrer once sang, “we’ll sleep through all the lectures and cheat on the exams And we’ll pass, and be forgotten with the rest”.
Yes, I may not be remembered by all, but I figure that those who do remember will probably still be friends with me. So they’re the ones that really matter.
Well, it’s official! I’m moving back in on Wednesday, so I have 3 days to go. The hours now seem to drag by. It’s not so bad, though, because I’ve actually started packing and putting things in my car at this point. See, I’m going to my grandma’s house across the state today, and I won’t be back till Tuesday. Therefore, I’m getting as much packing done ahead of time so I’m not frantic on Tuesday evening.
RICA is officially all done, and for that I’m grateful. While the class was certainly not a waste of time, it was much more time-consuming than I think it should have been. I mean, the final paper is three paragraphs long, but it’s worth a large enough percentage of your grade as to freak you out and make you spend several hours on it. But it’s done, and that’s what’s important.
I got my hands on one more soundtrack, and it’s actually the one I’ve been most intrigued by. So Shrek became a Broadway musical. When I first read about it last year, I thought, “That’s a really bad idea”. And just two days ago, the one copy my library had finally got to me, and I immediately popped it in my computer.
And… it’s not bad. It’s not amazing. The singers are almost all top-notch, though I admit that I HATEHATEHATE the voice and lines of the Gingerbread Man. Several songs were pretty great, like “When Words Fail” and “Who I'd Be”. The costumes that I’ve seen from posters, videos, and the performances in the Tony’s were pretty incredible. The problem is that everyone in the world has seen the movie, and it was, in my opinion, quite hilarious. So the people making the musical knew that audiences would remember those funny jokes. And then they decided that the audiences would want to hear about 80% of those jokes again. VERBATIM. While there is a fair bit of new material, seeing as how the show is at least an hour longer than the movie, there’s so much stuff that you’ve heard before that your patience wears thin as you listen. It’s worth checking out, but you shouldn’t go in with the expectation that you’ll be surprised by completely original jokes. You’ll find very few of them here. But if you want a soundtrack that will make you chuckle with good performances, it’s worth the waiting list you’ll inevitably sit through.
Speaking of music, I have chosen a theme song for my life. Because I’m weird, yes. I just feel like this song encapsulates me quite well. It’s “For Now”, the finale song from “Avenue Q”. Unless you’ve already heard the song, there’s not much point in trying to explain why I picked it. Possibly the reason you haven’t heard the song is because you heard Avenue Q is a nasty dirty show with no merit whatsoever. I disagree, and “For Now” is one of the main reasons. It pretty much expresses that attitude that I try to remember at all times, good and bad, in that no matter what comes our way, it will eventually pass. The good times don’t last, so treasure them when you can. The bad times don’t either, so just keep looking forward. I find that mindset makes many situations much less trying.
I’m going to talk about one of my favorite websites ever, but for once I’m not going to give you the link to the site. The reason will be made evident.
There’s this guy who calls himself “Yahtzee” who’s a British-born Australian, and he makes short videos that review video games. So far, so standard. Half of Youtube has done the same. Yahtzee narrates while a series of extremely simplistic cartoon figures act out his words on a yellow background. Yawn, right?
Here’s the thing about Yahtzee that makes him both popular and funny. His delivery is so rapid-fire it makes your head spin, and sometimes you have to watch the video twice to even get the jokes. In other words, he speaks at a faster pace than anyone I’ve ever met, and perhaps that’s one of the reasons I love to watch his videos. I’ve always wished I could talk like that. I would like nothing more than to spout witticisms every half a minute, but sadly it is not to be. It’s not that I can’t think of witty things to say. I can. It’s just that the gulf between “what I want to say” and “what I manage to say” is embarrassingly large. Those few of you who’ve only read this journal and never met me might say, “My, what a verbose and intelligent sounding young man”. I have two responses to this. Firstly, “Thanks! What are you doing Friday night?” Secondly, I’m afraid your impression is incorrect. My humor tends to revolve around heavy sarcasm, misheard phrases, Spoonerisms and other wordplay, bursting into song at the slightest provocation, pointing out the flaws of others, and self-deprecation, with some dirty humor if the audience seems receptive to it (You can imagine how often THAT happens during summer vacation). But more often than not, my humor falls flat because I can’t seem to convince my tongue that it should cooperate with what my brain just thought up. I’d like to blame this on the fact that my umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck for an extended period during my delivery, and therefore I can’t help it. But that’s a bit of a cop-out for what arguably can just be called “me being thick”.
Focus, Evan! Back to the topic at hand. Yahtzee manages to make his mouth work at astonishing speeds, and the result is a review of a video game that is extremely cynical, lasting less than 6 minutes and basically summing up whether or not a game is any good. But it goes a little deeper than that. See, of the games he’s reviewed, spanning an impressive 100 videos, I’ve only played 4 of them. Yet I look forward to every Wednesday like it’s Christmas because I know a new video will arrive. You don’t need to play the video games he talks about to enjoy the reviews. Heck, you don’t have to play video games PERIOD to enjoy the reviews. He’s so off-the-wall funny and insightful that you’ll fall out of your chair regardless.
And here’s the part that I hate. I can’t, in good conscience, recommend him to you. I want to. A lot. But I simply cannot do it. See, I’m aware of the audience for this journal. It ranges from kids in early middle school (hello, younger brothers and sisters of my school friends!) to my grandma. No seriously, my grandmother occasionally reads this (Hi, Granny Vee!). And Yahtzee’s videos are not safe for such audiences. I can assuredly say that about 90% of my reading audience would be horribly offended if they watched one. He swears A TON, he’s quite fond of making references that are explicit in all the wrong ways, and also he swears A TON. Yes, I know I already said that. I’m trying to drive the point home. Before writing this portion, I went through every video he’s ever made. I wanted to say, “Look, here’s one video that is safe for all viewers! Watch the others at your own risk!” But I couldn’t even do that. Not one single video could be linked to this journal without my being in fear of reprisals from angry parents, namely mine.
So I feel like I’ve given you enough clues to let you find him yourself if you’re interested. In case you’re still stymied, here’s one last clue. Go to Google.com. Make sure your browser has AutoComplete on. Then type in a single letter of the alphabet. I won’t tell you which one, that’s for you to figure out. His videos will be the 9th result down. That’s right, if you type in one letter of the alphabet, he will show up right away. By my dubious calculations, that makes him the 234th most popular website in the English speaking world. He’s just that good.
If I have one regret this summer, it’s that I didn’t get to spend enough time with more people. I got to hang out with many friends, but several of them I only saw once. If you’re reading this and think, “hey, I live not far away from Evan, and we’re great friends, and we didn’t spend nearly enough time together!”, then I’m probably talking about you. And I’m sorry.
OK, we’re packing up and heading out, so I’m gonna wrap this up. Get ready for the year ahead, eager readers!
(Note: It’s ridiculous how long this post has been sitting on my desktop laughing at me. Every time I feel like finishing it, something else comes up. Well, this is it, entry! You shall be written!)
July is winding down.
Let me repeat that. July is WINDING DOWN! YES! This month has, indeed, flown by. And I love it.
I don’t even know why it’s gone so fast. It might be the work I’ve started doing. It might be the sheer amount of time spent in the Sno Shack. It might be the incredible number of times I’ve hung out with friends.
Orrrr… it might be the feeling of impending doom in the pit of my stomach as I look at how much I still have to do before Getting Started weekend. Impending doom does tend to speed up time a tad.
In any case, we have 3 weeks left before Cedarville starts back up. The only thing better would be if it was 2 weeks.
But I have used my time well! By that, I mean I’ve spent more time with friends than ever before. Having a car, unsurprisingly, helps with such an endeavor. I’ve seen Assassins with Andy and Karen (incredible), watched Pippin with Greg while Brent worked on sound (entertaining), attended an RJ reunion-ish party at Julia’s house (nostalgia-tastic), hung out doing nothing with Craig and Curtis (hilarious), had lunch at Ponderosa with Nick Joch (wonderful), gone geocaching with Andy and Grant (crazy fun), and done anything that popped into our heads with Curtis (I’ve run out of positive adjectives, but I like it).
I’ve… dare I say it… enjoyed this summer. Yes, there have been several intervals of mind-numbing boredom. But they’ve been punctuated by bursts of happiness.
So yes, I got a new phone. And… it’s pretty nice. In the same way that strawberry-vanilla milkshakes from Steak n’ Shake are pretty nice. So it’s pretty much the best thing ever.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that, as cell phones go, it’s actually rather mediocre. I haven’t the faintest clue. My basis for comparison is my old cell phone, and I hated that thing with the fiery passion of a thousand white-hot suns.
So when you’ve got the beautiful little number that I used as my post picture, you tend to get a little excited. I can take pictures! I can make free ringtones and set them to individual friends! I can make a call that lasts 10 minutes and not spend $2.50! Glory be!
Now comes the part where half of you readers have my full permission to skip ahead. I’m gonna talk about musicals I’ve listened to recently. Broadway-ites only for the next few paragraphs.
In the Heights: I only got the chance to listen to this one a few weeks ago, despite the fact that it won the Tony for Best Musical a full year ago. My local library takes awhile. It’s SO good. No doubt about the fact that it deserved the victory. The “Heights” in the title refers to Washington Heights, a borough in Manhattan which has a high population of Hispanics, especially immigrants from the Dominican Republic. It’s basically a tribute to the area in the same way “Rent” was a tribute to Alphabet City. Almost all the songs have a hip-hop or salsa feeling to them, which is not something you see on Broadway much, mostly cause it doesn’t translate to the stage well. For once, though, it works completely and totally. If you get a chance, check it out.
Billy Eliot: True, this is the London recording, but I enjoyed the fact that I could listen to the winner of THIS year’s Tony for Best Musical as well as last year’s. That said, it wasn’t that good. I dunno, it might have just not been to my taste and everyone else sees something I don’t. A few songs were spirited, and the singers were quite good. It just didn’t do it for me.
Xanadu: So weird, but actually fairly entertaining! It wouldn’t have worked if it had tried to take itself seriously, but it seemed to be aware that it was a completely ridiculous show, and it made the decision to be as campy as possible. Which works.
A Catered Affair: The music for this show was pretty good, but it made the mistake of bad casting. One of the main characters for the show is played by Harvey Fierstein. This guy:
Look, I will openly admit that I liked him as Tracey’s mother in the original Broadway cast of “Hairspray”. But that role was supposed to be bizarre and off-putting. You’re not really supposed to identify with him/her. But in “A Catered Affair”, he’s supposed to be a normal person, an uncle who feels abandoned by his relations. And then he sings. And you feel like your eardrums are being rubbed with sandpaper. It’s just unpleasant.
Nine: I actually got this soundtrack from Ohiolink during my sophomore year, but I remember being completely unable to even get through the first song. Nine is supposed to be this award winning show, and they’re making a movie of it that comes out in November. I found it horrible. But since they’re making a movie, I thought I should give it another try. This time I got a revival soundtrack with Antonio Banderas in the main role, and it was infinitely better. Nine is basically the story of a man whose life has been completely dominated by women, and the plot revolves around him becoming aware of this. It sounds dull, I know, but it works. Check out the trailer for the movie, but be aware that there are… racy elements: http://www.apple.com/trailers/weinstein/nine/
Adding Machine: This is the last one, promise. I mainly include this show to warn you away from it. This is a musical only in name. Someone decided to combine the musical genre with expressionism. In my humble opinion, this was a horrible mistake. Only one or two songs have anything remotely resembling a melody, and the show itself is incredibly dark, depressing, and pessimistic. If you’re looking for a good time, this ain’t it. I suppose if you really want to expand your mind, or if you’re one of those music composition majors who like something that pushes on the edge of what defines “music”, then you might enjoy it. Me? I like a good tune.
OK, I finished. You can start reading again.
I got my scores from the PRAXIS tests back. After some checking with the state and Cedarville standards (Cedarville requires a higher grade than the state in order to pass), I am happy to say that the PRAXIS 2 tests are behind me forever. All that time spent studying paid off. Those hours and hours sequestered in my room poring over music theory and educational methods were worth it.
And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in San Fransisco. I spent between 2 and 3 hours studying. In other words, the tests themselves took more time than I took to get ready for them. This isn’t meant to keep my fellow ed majors from studying. You should. This is mainly meant to let you know, in case you were unaware, that I am a lazy bum.
A good example of this is how well I’m doing on my recital songs. In my last post, written three weeks ago, I said I was confident in 5 of my 15 songs. Today? I’d say I’ve memorized or nearly memorized 10 of them. It sounds a lot less impressive when you realize I’ve got 3 weeks till they ALL have to be memorized, or else Dr. Ferranti will, not without reason, be rather displeased. You also have to keep in mind that the ones that aren’t memorized are the ones that are the longest, the ones with 3 or 4 verses with very little repetition. ::gulp::
And it’s not as if I don’t WANT to spend a ton of time on them. I do! But then I stumble on a new game on Nitrome (you don’t know what procrastination means till you’ve visited Nitrome.com), and there goes 2 ½ hours! And then I have to work on RICA, or get stuff set up for MENC, or read one of the novels for the class this fall.
The real problem is this: I’m enjoying LIFE too much. I always have. They say those who go through near-death experiences suddenly realize how wonderful life is, but their wonder only lasts a few weeks before the mundane sets in again.
I’ve never come close to death, but I’ve always been in awe of the world around me. Have you ever sat looking out the window just watching clouds for 10 minutes? They’re incredible! The subtle interchanging of light and darkness, the intermittent shafts of sunbeams that break through to illuminate a patch of the earth, the unpredictable directions the wind blows depending on how high up the cloud layer goes… I could go on for hours.
And that’s the problem. I sit in the Sno Shack, I have homework sitting in my lap, I don’t have customers for large periods of time…. But the clouds are so amazing!
And the simple fact is this: I haven’t done much yet. There’s so many things I still want to try in the next few years. I’ve visited maybe a fifth of the US, and only left the country once. 99% of my life has been spent within 50 miles of my house.
So I look around me and all I see is opportunity. Yes, there’s homework to be done. Yes, I still have a year of school. But after that? Who knows!
I think I’m done. Some of that work calls to me now. Keep looking up, superlative readers!
Welcome to July. Yes, June has now past and we have one less month of summer. FINALLY. Is it just me, or did June take FOR-EV-ER? May seemed like a blur in comparison. I’m also glad to say that we’ve past the half-way marker for summer. Hopefully, August will rush towards us like a freight train.
One downside to July is that several friends decided to be absent for the entire month. It’s very rude to just leave me without your company. You know who you are. Just because you have to do your “internship” that’s “required” for you to “graduate” and have a “career” in the “future”. What about me, huh? I wanted to hang out with you guys, ya know?
In other words, I hope you guys do really well. I’m sure you will.
Last week, I saw a local production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins” with Karen and Andy and absolutely loved it. It’s one of my favorite Sondheim creations, and the Beavercreek company recreated it very faithfully. It’s a show that pushes against your brain in ways you don’t want to be pushed. For example, there’s a stirring monologue delivered near the show’s conclusion. It’s spoken in Italian by one character while the other characters translate it piece by piece into English:
“Please, I beseech you. We are the hopeless ones, the lost ones. We live our lives in exile. Expatriates in our own country. We drift from birth to death, despairing, inconsolable. But! Through you and your act, we dare to hope. Through you and your act, we are revived and given meaning. Our lives, our acts are given meaning! Our frustrations fall away. Our fondest dreams come true. Today we are reborn through you.”
It resonates with you, doesn’t it? Until you understand that it’s a monologue delivered by Giuseppe Zangara, would-be assassin of Franklin D. Roosevelt, to convince Lee Harvey Oswald to kill John F. Kennedy. Yes, the “assassins” in the show are men and women who killed or attempted to kill U.S. Presidents. On one level, you’re disgusted by the characters in the show. Several of them are completely insane, while others are consumed by anger and bitterness. These are people who wanted to destroy other human beings simply because they were powerful or famous. But Sondheim doesn’t let you hate them completely. He makes them funny. He gives them deeply moving and heartfelt ballads. He portrays them as people, rather than as footnotes in a history book. He makes them real, and whether you like it or not, you’re forced to see yourself in them. They wanted to be loved, to be respected and remembered, and to know that they mattered as people. Their actions were inexcusable, but their minds were not so different from any other American. It’s a great show, if it’s ever playing in your neighborhood, but an open mind is essential to enjoy it.
I just got back from Mammoth Caves with my family. Very cool place. I’ve wanted to go for years, but distance and cost restraints have prevented it. This year, things fell into place and we could do it. There is something about caves that appeals strongly to me. Even though thousands and millions of people have gone through a passage before me, it still feels like I’m the first one to explore it, and I’m seeing something no one’s ever seen before.
That being said, I hate tour groups. With a passion. Nothing ruins the feeling of exploration like 2 babies crying, 3 toddlers babbling nonstop, and 4 elderly tourists from Japan taking a picture every few seconds.
The weirdest part of the tours was how many different nationalities there were in the group. Of languages I definitely recognized, I heard Norwegian, French, Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese. I also know there were at least a few more, but I couldn’t pin them down. I consider myself a tolerant person, and I’m really not xenophobic, but being surrounded by so many foreign people irritated me for some reason. It was like I was mad that these people were on my property. Never mind the fact that I’m about ¾ descended from immigrants of various nationalities. I still felt like they were invading my country. Of course, the tour guide was not helping this. She kept going on about how the caves were part of “OUR parks” and she was proud to show us “OUR beautiful resources”. The way she phrased it made it almost sound like the foreign tourists were being deliberately excluded.
Or…. maybe I was just imagining things out of my irritation at being surrounded by strangers.
I’ve been trying very hard to make headway on memorizing my recital songs. I have 15 all together, and I know I have only 4 or 5 of those down pat. This is a problem. I think my main problem is that I never learned to memorize things verbatim. Learning songs from musicals is not the same thing, because there’s a plot that goes beneath the music, and that pushes my brain forward. Whereas all of my songs that remain un-memorized are in foreign languages. Italian isn’t that big of a deal for me, but French and German are next to impossible. Imagine trying to memorize 3 minutes worth of nonsense syllables where the letters on the page don’t quite match the sounds that your mouth is supposed to be making. Then multiply those 3 minutes by 10.
I understand, of course, that the sounds I’m singing do mean something, and I have the literal translation in front of me when I’m trying to memorize. But my brain can’t handle understanding the translation while still working towards memorization. I never learned how to do that, and I know that after graduation I’ll never have a need to learn like this again. So it’s discouraging.
The latest book on my reading list is “Fathers and Children”, also known as “Fathers and Sons”, by Ivan Turgenev. It’s a Russian novel written in 1862, and it’s really got my brain moving. For a book written almost 150 years ago, it stays very relevant with the issues it addresses.
One of the main things that are emphasized is the relationships between different generations, and the tensions and difficulties that arise from their differences. The younger generation will always view the one before it as backwards and old-fashioned, and it’s never really true. Yes, new ideas come up, new viewpoints are introduced, but that doesn’t mean the ones that came before are now worthless.
One of the sayings I’ve heard in the Cedarville music department is that music is the only intellectual system where new ideas don’t completely displace the old ones. We still use Romantic stylistic choices in our compositions even though the Romantic period ended a century ago. We adapt new ideas and old ones to create, and we don’t throw away compositions from previous musicians because they’re outdated.
In Turgenev’s book, the fathers of the main characters, Arkady and Bazarov, are both desperate to relate to their sons. The two friends have adopted a nihilistic worldview, which was pretty new at the time, and their fathers want nothing more than to be respected by their sons. Yet every attempt seems to only drive more wedges between them.
This is the sort of book that gets my mind in a funk I can’t get out of. Right now, I’m the newest generation. The world lies before me in a limitless expanse, and I can do anything I want.
Flash forward 5 years. I’ve settled down to a job. Maybe I’m married, maybe not. I’ve got a place to live, my life is now being set into order, and….. That great expanse that stretched out before me is now a narrow line. Oh, there are places where I can branch off my line. I could quit my job and try something new. I could move to a foreign country. But it would eventually just turn into a narrow line again. And the next generation looks at me only to scoff and say, “I’ll do better. I’ll outdo everyone that’s come before me! The world is my oyster!” As an interesting bit of trivia, it is very rare for an oyster to naturally produce pearls. If you were to take three tons of oysters from the ocean, only three or four would have pearls that were perfectly spherical.
I’m just saying.
Is it odd that I never had great ambitions? Maybe an occasional desire to be an astronaut, but that was one of those “when I grow up” wishes that 10-year-olds make. I’ve never had it in my head that I could succeed on Broadway, or get past the first round on American Idol, or get into a prestigious school. I’ve had my modest upbringing, I’ve had my friends, and I haven’t really reached further. I don’t really want to.
But I still can’t squash the need in my mind to be remembered. It’s a fantasy, really. The name Michael Jackson will be well known for at least 100 years. The name Ludwig van Beethoven has resonated for 200 years and will likely continue till the end of Western Civilization.
The name Evan Felmet will be known by maybe 10,000 people in my lifetime. After my death, assuming I live to be around 90, that number will steadily dwindle till perhaps 50 or 60 years later, when the last of any possible immediate relatives has died. Then the only chance it will be spoken aloud is if someone wanders by my tombstone and, out of boredom, takes the time to figure out the span between my birth and death dates.
And that’s assuming I live to 90.
I’d have to say my main ambition that goes very long-term is to live to be 89. I was born in 1987, and I always was sad that I missed the bicentennial. So, I want to live to see July 4, 2076. I think the tricentennial is going to be pretty cool.
See? Nothing fancy. I’m not reaching for the stars, I just want to live for awhile.
Hmm… the last half of that section had absolutely nothing to do with “Fathers and Children”.
That sounds like my cue to call it a night! 1737 words and 4 pages worth of blogging. I’d say I’m done.
